Rail carriages are intended in the description and the claims to be understood to be all rail-bound vehicles for passenger transport whether these be trams, underground trains, high-speed trains, local trains or passenger trains. Disclosed embodiments is intended in particular for such applications but can also advantageously be used with other vehicle doors.
With such vehicles, there is in many cases a problem that, when stopping in a station, there is between the floor, actually the so-called footrail, which constitutes the door-side end region thereof, on the one hand, and the platform, on the other hand, a gap in a horizontal direction and in many cases also a height difference. Various proposals have already been submitted for providing bridges for this gap either together with the opening of the door or independently thereof, but all these attempts involve different disadvantages and there inevitably also remains after a footboard has been extended a height difference between the upper floor edge of the carriage and the adjacent upper footboard edge.
Another type of bridging comprises a so-called ramp which is always extended by the same length, comes to rest with the front thereof on the platform and is then raised with the carriage-side end until a consistent level is produced. The great disadvantage lies in the dangers which arise during the pushing-out action over the platform and in some cases also in the contact region with the tread step.
A lowering or pivoting of the footrail onto the extended footboard has also been proposed, but as a result of the structural height of the footrail there is no actual balancing of the levels in this instance and in this instance the risk of jamming on the one hand and disruption as a result of contamination on the other hand is too great to permit general use or even implementation.